Not All Who Wander Are Lost
by general zero
Summary: Vala is determined to fill her life with adventure and new horizons, but no matter how far afield she goes, there are two men she keeps coming back to. She hopes they don't end up killing each other. [Imagine Fuck, Marry, Kill where the choices are Saal, Yondu and Ronan. First chapter is light-hearted and stands alone. The second requires tissues. Saal/OC/Yondu open relationship]
1. Chapter 1--If You Can Share

**Inspired by this post on tumblr: tryingtogroklife dot tumblr dot com/post/123/ asking "Who you would rather date: Saal or Yondu?" The response was so perfect I had to write a fic for it.**

 **Fuck: Yondu, oh god yes.**  
 **Marry: Saal because he is perfect.**  
 **Kill: sorry Ronan, you can't compete.**

 **This started out as utterly shameless wish-fullfilment and somehow morphed into a real romance. There is no actual smut in this, however, mainly because just thinking about smut involving these two gets me too distracted to write.**

 **The first chapter is light-hearted and humorous if that is what you're looking for, the story can stop there. The second chapter includes the events of GotG and made me cry while writing it.**

 **Lastly, this fic has no relation to my other Saal story.**

 **Rated for light sexual content, language and the emotionally intense second chapter.**

 **Disclaimer: Saal and Yondu are fictional characters owned by Marvel and it's just as well because I would probably embarrass myself if I met them IRL.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1—If You Can Share**

It hurts, not getting into the Corps. Vala knows she did just as well as Garthan in the aptitude tests, all fourteen of them, because they compared notes afterward and he had no idea what he was doing for about two thirds of test number nine and she had to explain to him exactly what kind of imbecile he was for trying to use navigational theory to solve a diplomatic problem. Garthan is no kind of diplomat, Vala knows. He barely tolerates people at all; for all that he is kind, he seems to prefer human interaction when it is conducted from opposite ends of a ten foot pole—or from a ship in orbit. Garthan is going to be an ace pilot, someday; Vala knows this and it hurts now that she's not going to be any kind of pilot at all.

Because apparently test number fifteen is some sort of pass-or-fail evaluation of your _worthiness_ to be a conduit for the Nova Force. Vala thought it was bullshit before, and now she's certain it's bullshit, even though the other presence in her head during the test had been undeniably real.

Vala is hurt, and Garthan obviously feels bad but he doesn't even hesitate to accept the Nova Corps position, and that hurts, too. For a while they pretend, while he is stationed on Xandar, that everything is just the way it had been every day growing up together. But it isn't. Vala knows Garthan like she knows her own face; she knows Garthan the surly introvert that has never had her easy way with people, Garthan the sardonic son of a bitch that let her take the fall for the hovercar they stole when they were fourteen but who broke her out of the local holding cells afterwards, Garthan the endlessly loyal friend who pretended to be her boyfriend for months to keep a pervert at bay and ended up nearly killing the guy when things went wrong. Vala knows Garthan well enough to know that when his first off-world assignment comes he will take it and expect her to stay on Xandar to wait for him.

They're not together, not officially and neither of them were ever into the romance thing anyway, but Vala knows he is surprised when she takes off a week before he deploys. She knows he's hurt, even, and a small spiteful part of her is very happy about that. It's the reason she leaves before he does, to see the look on his face. But her parting words are kind:

"Stay out of trouble, huh?"

"Me? Trouble? You're taking the trouble with you."

Vala doesn't see him for years, and it doesn't bother her that much. Garthan is such a constant that she knows he'll always be there, and until she sees him again she's going to have all the adventures she can fit into her life.

She does become an ace pilot, after a fashion. First a racer, then a smuggler, when life intervenes and she gets banned from the circuits. Racing is where she meets Yondu.

He's just a familiar stranger at first, placing overlarge bets in her favor and one day he sticks around long enough into the post-victory celebration that her very high, very drunk brain decides to that he's handsome and mysterious and she is in need once more of an adventure.

"You're not my type, darling." His drawl is delicious and Vala is suddenly very invested in tasting the tongue it rolls off of so fluidly.

"Type has nothing to do with it. I just won you a very large amount of money. You own me. Owe me. I meant owe me." She's way too drunk right now, but maybe it's alright because his eyes glitter a little and he allows her to shoo away his two accompanying thugs with the promise of as many rounds as they can drink on her tab.

In the morning Vala does not remember nor care about anything at all until she gets a hangover shot and then after that she is pleased to find out that Yondu is just as fascinating when she is sober—and his drawl just as delicious—and to recall that his tongue is very, very satisfactory indeed. He's not the type to hit it and quit it without staying for breakfast, either, so he shows her a few tricks with something he calls his yakka arrow. Vala decides that Yondu is a badass and makes him her new adventure.

She doesn't see him the whole rest of the season. Vala thinks about him about as often as she thinks of Garthan and doesn't feel the least bit guilty about it. When he shows up once more with a professional request she decides that throwing races is worth the dent to her integrity in exchange for the pay cut Yondu gives her and for the sex. Especially the sex. Vala screws him over, once or twice, winning a race she is supposed to lose, just to make sure he knows that he does not, in fact, own her, as Vala drunkenly suggested when they first met. She finds out he has a horrific temper, and that angry sex is very exciting.

Good things do not last, and Vala is kicked out of the racing circuit and charged with fraud. At Yondu's suggestion, she lays low on his ship. Vala had known before this that Yondu was a Ravager, abstractly at least, but the reality is jarringly different. Yondu is an unholy tyrant and Vala refuses to let him treat her as part of the crew. They both find that living together is unbearable. Vala can feel the cracks forming in their relationship and she becomes desperate to leave before it shatters and she loses him.

It's a relief when Yondu leaves her stranded in the middle of a smuggling deal, even though she is arrested. He winks at her and calls her darling in that self-assured drawl of his even as she shrieks bloodcurdling profanities at his retreating figure. She is pretty sure he will forgive her for telling Nova Corps everything she knows about his last four jobs and the one he is planning to tackle next. Maybe.

Vala spends thirty-six weeks in the local penitentiary and when she gets out she finangles herself a sleek little cruiser to do freelance transport with—some legal, some not. She discovers that prison sucks no matter how low the security but that breaking out is not worth the trouble and that adventure always is. Vala spends nearly a year coming back to a tiny little moon in the fourth quadrant every weekend in order to have a slow, sweet, disgustingly saccharine affair with a Kree girl studying at the university there.

Then she meets Garthan again, like she always knew she would, but it doesn't go how she had anticipated, mainly because she is caught smuggling and Garthan is the officer arresting her. He is a Millenian now, which means he's had several promotions since she's seen him and she is so proud and so happy to see him she could burst.

He pretends he doesn't know her.

Vala is shocked and the only reaction her apologies are able to extract is a single pained expression that he quickly hides. She is almost unaware of the time she spends in prison this time, except to note that it is considerably shorter than it should be. Garthan comes to see her out on the last day, and she realizes he has been pulling strings to shorten her sentence.

"Vala, don't make me do this again. Don't ever put me in this position again," he tells her, looking very cold and serious. Vala suddenly knows for a fact that he hasn't made another friend since they parted; she knows this because she knows Garthan and knows that this is exactly the kind of person he would become without anyone to force him to pull back his thorns a little.

But because she is angry and hurt Vala doesn't realize right away that he is not talking about her jeopardizing his reputation but is trying to say in his awkward-Garthan way that he can't bear to arrest her again. When she leaves she makes sure to trip the nearest fire alarm and steals his cruiser to replace her impounded ship.

Vala goes to Yondu, who is not easy to find and does not, in fact, easily forgive her for ratting him out to Nova Corps. Yondu is not the comforting type, but their time apart has done them good and they return to what they had. He has picked up a scrawny Terran kid in the interim, however, and despite grisly jokes about possible cannibalism, it has softened him slightly.

Vala has Garthan's cruiser refitted and rips out the tracking software and repaints it until it's a fairly sexy looking little Milano, and she lets Peter play at flying it. The kid seems to enjoy her as much as any ten year can enjoy an adult's company but reacts with violent negativity to the slightest bit of mothering. Vala figures it's Yondu's influence.

"So who broke your little heart, darling?" Yondu asks once, and Vala doesn't tell him. He goes on as if she had, and if he is jealous that someone else has enough of her heart to break it he doesn't show it. "You're a right howling bitch, Vala, but you've always had a spark I liked. You're no fun without it."

"What are you getting at?"

"You've moped around my damn ship long enough, little girl. Go find the asshole and show 'em how much they'd like to own you, since I clearly don't."

Vala just stares, because Yondu is a good man but he is also a bastard and he doesn't share.

He smirks at her and winks. "And then come back."

Vala leaves, and tracks Garthan down to a border station he is in charge of. He's Denarian Saal now, and the amount of bullshit she has to make up in order to get an audience with him is impressive. He is busy, she knows, because the Kree are making strafing runs on the planets in this area and he is responsible for the wellbeing of a great many people.

He is shocked to see her, but this time he doesn't pretend she's just another criminal. This time he practically crushes her in a hug that she doesn't want to ever stop.

"I'm sorry."

He apologizes for being a jerk, and for a thousand other things that didn't really matter, and Vala is warmed by it until she realizes he, too, expects an apology. For what exactly she drags out of him slowly, because it is so obvious to him he can't even explain—for leaving, for turning into a criminal, for forcing him to bail her out at his own expense. The anger comes back.

"You have no right to judge me, Garthan. You haven't been a part of my life in years." _You don't know me._ It is left unsaid but clearly understood, and Vala is struck with the sadness of that truth.

"And whose fault is that? Who ran off?"

The argument is never finished, because the Kree attack the actual station in what is apparently a well-planned ambush. They are surrounded, and Vala realizes that the Milano is far smaller and faster than any of the Nova ships docked at the station. She's a racer; she could get out, but she knows she's not leaving Garthan. She offers a plan, and the other officers scoff before Garthan icily shuts them up and asks her if she's really okay to do this. Garthan has never underestimated her.

The station ends up instigating a skirmish with the blockade as cover for the Milano. Vala drives like she's back on the circuit, with Garthan as her copilot, and they pilot so recklessly and so well together that Vala is sure the squad of corpsmen with them must think the both of them crazy. They make it past the blockade, taking only a single hit. It's bad, Vala knows immediately, because it's hit the engine plate and the power to several systems is suddenly cut off, most importantly to the life support.

Then Garthan does something—later he'll say something vague about the Nova Force—and life support is suddenly functioning at 100% despite the fact that the power is still dead and it's amazing. She pulls the Milano up behind the unaware Kree command ship and they blow it to pieces with remote explosives. By the time the Kree retreat, Garthan is looking inexplicably exhausted, and immediately after Vala docks the Milano and the station's life support takes over he collapses. She learns that he'd been holding the ship together with the Nova Force, which apparently isn't exactly easy to channel. Vala had to be very scary indeed to find even that much out, since details about the Nova Force were considered state secrets.

She stays on the station, alternating time between the medbay and fixing the Milano, and when security personnel make disapproving noises about a civilian's presence on the station, she feels completely justified in telling everyone that Garthan is her fiancé so they had better leave her the hell alone because she has rights under Xandarian law.

Garthan laughs when he wakes up to congratulations from his aide and his medical officer, and doesn't refute Vala's claim. For a few minutes things are quite as easy as they had been so many years before, but too soon enough they fall into a silence born of simultaneously not having enough to say to each and having too much to say to each other.

"Garthan," Vala said hesitantly. "Would you like to get know me again?"

"I would like that very much."

Garthan calls in on accumulated leave and they spend it on Xandar, going to all their old places and to new ones. Garthan is an important figure nowadays and people whisper. Vala cannot stop herself from purposely insulting a few snobs here and there but she holds herself back so as not to embarrass Garthan. They talk. Garthan does not tell her everything about the Nova Corps but he tells her the important things—most of which have nothing at all to do with his job per say as with the fascinating people he meets doing it. Vala is delighted to find him the same in all the best ways, and what differences exist are intriguing, not disappointing.

In turn, Vala shares what matters to her and keeps things to herself as she feels appropriate. They are not looking for co-dependence. Vala does tell Garthan about Yondu—sparing with the details, as she doesn't want to get her lover arrested, after all.

"Are you taken then?" Garthan asks immediately.

"Not at all, if you can share."

Garthan goes on duty again but arranges to have an assignment on Xandar. One of his subordinates—a charismatic, idealistic Millenian called Rhomann Dey that Vala is fairly sure Garthan considers a friend even if he will not say it—lets her know that Nova Corps is opening up a transport contract and she takes the job, which mainly entails sweet-talking local shipbuilders into making ships for Nova Corps at cut price. She abuses the position slightly by taking fancy new models out for little jaunts across the solar system.

Garthan does nothing to dispel people of the notion that they are engaged. Vala teases him about it over ice cream and he suddenly asks her very seriously if she will marry him. She hesitates.

"I'm not the kind of person who settles down, you know. I'm going go gallivanting off into the galaxy to have an adventure every so often."

"So gallivant, then. But when you come home, come home to me."

Vala wants to say yes. She wants to say that she already considers him home. But she needs adventure in her life and she knows that Garthan is not ever going to want to have that with her. He loves the adventure as much as she does, else he would never have joined Nova Corps, but because Vala is living in his apartment she is there when he wakes up shaking in the middle of the night and Vala knows that Garthan needs someone to rest with, to be safe from adventures gone wrong. She tells him she'll think about it.

The next day she takes the Milano to see Yondu. Peter has somehow grown up since she's seen him but is just as in love with the Milano as he was at age ten. Yondu takes her gambling and swears at her when she flirts with the dealer. She tells the bouncer he's been counting cards—which he has—and they both get kicked out and narrowly avoid ending up in a jail cell for the night. The next night they pull similar shenanigans at a strip club and Vala enjoys herself immensely.

Nova Corps picks up one of Yondu's thugs for a petty offense and lets him go scot-free—he returns with a message for Vala. It's from Garthan, letting her know that he's gone to quadrant two for an assignment and where to find him. It ends with: "Have fun, but please don't get arrested."

Vala watches it over several times and realizes that she wants to be Garthan's rest and that she needs him to be hers.

"So when were you going to tell me that my competition was in the stars-damned Nova Corps?"

Vala winces. "Don't you dare start harassing him, Yondu."

"Well, he put the spark back into ya, at least. Let me tell you though, darling, I know the sex can't be half as good."

"We don't have sex." Vala informs him thoughtfully; it has only just occurred to her that this is true. "We don't… need it."

Yondu grins his wolf grin at her. "So you'll be coming to me for that, then?"

"If you can share." Vala grins back and does something with her free hand far too naughty for the pricy venue they've snuck into, in full view of all the very respectable patrons. He doesn't stop her, and she takes that as his answer. This time they do end up in a jail cell.

Vala later catches Peter trying to steal off with the Milano and some of Yondu's latest booty. She tells him he can have the Milano on the light-hearted condition that he aggravates Yondu as much as possible and he gratefully drops her off on Xandar.

She enlists Rhomann in a conspiracy to plan a large, fancy wedding and can barely hold in her glee to see Garthan torn between joy and mortification when he arrives in the middle of it all. She sends a very elaborate invitation to Yondu, knowing full well that he will not be able to set foot on Xandar without being arrested, and that he knows it. In keeping with the true spirit of their relationship, he shows up anyway, in a suit no less but still packing the yakka arrow.

Garthan reacts with considerable grace, subtly arranging for all the corpsman in the vicinity to become selectively blind. Vala allows Yondu to dance with her once and stops him from become horrifically lewd three times. Yondu goes on to charm or terrify the rest of the guests with minimal intervention needed. At some point Garthan, Vala and Yondu all end up in a private corner together. The silence is not exactly awkward but there is no way in hell Vala is going to be the first to speak.

"I applaud your restraint, Udonta. You've been almost civilized this entire evening."

"Just lulling ya into complacency, son," Yondu drawls. They're both sizing each other up.

"I _will_ arrest you if you're still here in the morning."

Yondu grins. "Won't you be on a honeymoon? If you're too busy for Vala I could take her on one myself."

"No you can't," Vala cuts in sternly, wrapping herself in Garthan's arms pointedly.

"Remember you don't own her, lawman," Yondu says seriously.

"Neither do you. Nobody does."

"That's just the truth, ain't it." Yondu looks to Vala. "I'm going, darling. Clubs haven't closed yet, I hear." Then he has the gall to kiss her thoroughly while she is still in in her husband's arms and Vala figures that if Garthan and Yondu are ever going to kill each other, it would be at that moment, so it's relieving when they don't.

Vala realizes later that Yondu stole her wedding ring off her finger. _Bastard,_ she thinks with a smile.


	2. Chapter 2--Destroyer

**The events of GotG from Vala's POV.**

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 **Chapter 2-Destroyer**

A few years and a few adventures later, Yondu tells Vala to stick with her goddamn husband for a while because he's setting up a dangerous mission and Peter is causing trouble again. Vala might have been offended by the implication that she can't handle danger, except that she is very well acquainted with what the results of "Peter is causing trouble again" usually are. Vala leaves without arguing, nearly getting caught by a Kree privateer on her way back. The galaxy is not as safe as it was in years past.

Garthan is also too busy for her. He is one of Nova Prime's advisors nowadays and the developing peace treaty is actually not really developing at all. He is always working, and is exhausted and frustrated when he isn't.

"What's the name of that young kid of Yondu's?" he asks one day in the ten minutes Vala makes him take to eat lunch with her. He doesn't even leave the Nova Corp complex; she comes to him, with takeout from their favorite dive. Security doesn't even check her in anymore.

"Peter Quill. Calls himself Starlord." Vala thinks it is adorable and dorky and just like Peter.

"I just sent him to the Kyln."

"What?"

"He was booked with three other highly dangerous suspects and I didn't have time to sort out how he was related to them. There was nothing else I could do." Garthan sighs. "Rhomann called me out on it— _Denarian Saal_ , he says, as if we haven't known each other for years, _The Kyln is a barbaric place._ Does he think I don't know that? I'm doing what I can. The Kree situation is the top priority right now."

Vala reassures him and then offers a distraction in the form of a message to Nova Prime. It's just Vala's next move in the strategy game they're playing together via Garthan, but it cheers him. Vala has never actually met Nova Prime—she's a mean strategist and she must have a sense of humor, Vala knows that—and Garthan is endlessly amused at the situation.

That evening Vala leaves a notes for Garthan and takes her old racer out to find Yondu. Dangerous jobs aside, someone needs to get Peter the hell out of the Kyln.

Things escalate very quickly from there. Yondu is not happy to see her but is too distracted to force her to leave. Peter is no longer at the Kyln but in Knowhere, and when they get there _Ronan the fucking Accuser_ is there with the Dark Aster and Vala has to admit to being frightened. Eventually, they get Peter back on the ship, but Vala misses it because she is busy on the net trying to get a message to Garthan. Yondu's reception with non-underground lines of communication sucks, however, it always has, and she' going to kill him for not updating his damn software when suddenly her old Milano is requesting contact. She puts it on intercom and a very disorganized death threat comes through, and Vala thinks that this day can't possibly get any worse.

She's wrong.

Ronan is on his way to destroy Xandar with an unbeatable superweapon. He's going to destroy Xandar, her planet, and millions of people and _Garthan_. Garthan will be right between Ronan and Xandar with the rest of Nova Corps, Vala knows, and the thought is too much for her. She escapes to Yondu's cabin and breaks down and at some point forgets to breathe. It's called a panic attack, Yondu tells her with unexpected softness. She screams at him for his part in this mess, and for his shitty software connection that means she can't warn _Garthan_ and Yondu lets her.

"Peter has a plan, darling," he says soothingly.

" _Peter_ has a _plan_?" she says incredulously.

Peter does, in fact, have a plan, as well as several scary new friends, including a small creature called Rocket that Vala is pretty sure Garthan has included in his list of Interesting People he tells her stories about. Her theory is confirmed when she catches Rocket eyeing her racer appreciatively.

"You a racer?" she asks.

He nods. "Four circuit trophies, long while back."

Vala can't help but one up him. "Six. Been a long time for me, too," she says, grateful for a bit of a distraction. She tells him the name she raced under and is rewarded with a very impressed look that Vala supposes he doesn't give out often.

Peter later assures her that he has already gotten a message through to Nova Corps and when she pesters him he reveals that he knows Rhomann Dey from somewhere or other—probably from his arrest, Vala realizes. That is good. Dey will take Peter seriously, even if Garthan won't. Garthan would take _her_ seriously, but apparently this is as good as they can get.

Vala bullies Yondu into letting her pilot one of the Ravager ships. The Dark Aster is huge, unbelievably huge, and the fighters swarm off of it like murderous ants. The sight of Xandar far below gives her the determination to charge towards them, weaving in and out like the racing dervish she is.

It looks like their attack is futile, for a moment, but then Vala catches sight of the hundreds of Nova fighters swarming up from the planet. New model, very effective, she'd commissioned them just over a year ago, Vala thought with satisfaction. Then her attention is torn away by an incoming Kree fighter and she has to concentrate. She keeps the comms open.

"Peter Quill, this is Denarian Saal. For the record, I advised them against trusting you."

Oh stars, Garthan was up here too.

"They got my dick message!" Peter's voice flares up and then Garthan's returns: "Prove me wrong."

Vala turns on her mic. "Garthan! It's Vala." She hears him catch his breath, and searches for something to say that's not _please don't get killed._ "How are the new models working?"

"Vala, you need get out of here now."

"There's not going to be anywhere to escape to," Vala counters. "Just stay out of trouble, okay?"

"Trouble? You brought all the trouble with you, love."

"You two know each other?" Rocket interrupts.

"She's my wife."

"Damn, Saal, if I'd known your wife was a badass racer, I wouldn't have teased you so much."

"Teasing him?" Vala asks. "How do you know each other?"

"If ya'll gonna small talk, can ya do it on a private frequency?" Yondu drawls.

Right. Battle. Yala vaporizes another fighter. And another. It is endless. The Dark Aster moves relentlessly downwards. Yondu goes down with a warning to Peter and Vala convinces herself that he wouldn't be threatening Peter if he were about to die. Then again, Yondu might.

"Garthan, you need to start a blockade."

"Already on it."

The blockade is a brilliant innovation but Vala is terribly uncertain it will be enough. The Kree fighters dive-bomb the city, and Vala is not about to let that fly. Rocket and the other Ravagers take her cue and drop down to defend it.

"We got things down here, Saal. Just hold that blockade," Rocket says.

"I can't believe I'm taking orders from a hamster."

Vala hears Rocket laugh and feels that there is a joke somewhere in their history.

Vala takes a hit somewhere that jogs circuitry—she's out one gun, there's a pressure leak somewhere that will be giving her a hell of a migraine pretty soon and her mic is no longer responding. All she can do is listen.

"Vala, come in," Garthan says for the third time.

"Saal, she took a hit but her ship hasn't gone down. She's fine. Concentrate on the blockade," Rocket orders.

"It's not holding, Rocket."

"It's gotta hold."

Vala's fists turn white as she grips the controls. She knows that Garthan and everyone one of the corpsmen up there are channeling as much of the Nova Force as they can possibly handle. What if it's not enough?

Vala does not get to find out, because her ship takes critical hit and sh

e's spinning away from the battle, torn between wishing she good say goodbye to Garthan and Yondu and desperately hoping that this is not, in fact, goodbye.

Yondu tracks her down and pulls her out of the wreckage, although he does not stick around. Peter tells her this, when they meet in the hospital. She has just been let out of her bed for the first time.

Rocket is with Peter and he looks absolutely stricken. He is also holding a bundle of sticks in his arms, and Vala does not pursue the implications of that because she does not want to hear that someone else is dead. He seems to notice her for the first time when she asks Peter if he's heard from Garthan.

"The blockade went down," Rocket says in a monotone. "He held it to the very last instant."

Vala feels the floor rushing up at her and Peter stops her from falling.

The next time the doctors clears her to get up, she doesn't.

Peter visits, and she asks him if he can contact Yondu. Peter looks pained, and starts some explanation about how Yondu might possibly kill him for switching out—but he stops at the look in her eyes and leaves, embarrassed.

Rhomann visits, and Vala notices that he has been promoted to Denarian. It is unfair of her but she doesn't talk to him.

Yondu appears a day or so later but she only knows this because the nurses can't stop gossiping about how the Ravagers are helping to take apart the Dark Aster.

Rocket visits, and he sets a potted stick on the table next to her before climbing up on her bed and demanding that she make room for him. He sprawls by her feet, and talks despite the fact that she does not answer. He talks about the stick, which was formerly a very sweet tree monster named Groot. He talks about how Peter is hiding from Yondu and how the Ravagers are tearing apart Ronan's massive ship on Yondu's orders. He does not say that they are retrieving bodies, which is what Vala knows they are doing, or which body in particular they are looking for.

He talks about how he first met Garthan back during the months following their marriage. How Rocket had been up for grand theft and Nova Corps wasn't sure if he was a sentient being and deserved a trial, and how Garthan was in charge of his case. How Garthan kept twisting his wedding ring on his finger and how easy it was to get him upset by insulting Vala. How they ended up, strangely enough, talking more about her than about questions of Rocket's personhood and how Garthan talked about her like she was a fairytale he couldn't believe he was waking up to every day. How Garthan had eventually recommended to Nova that Rocket go to trial, which was ironically one of the best things to ever happen to Rocket because it meant that Nova Corps was legally bound to recognize him as person, and anyway he broke out of prison right away afterwards. Vala is crying by the end.

On the same day that the gossip vine tells her that Yondu and his Ravagers have left, a strange woman visits Vala. She is short but her demeanor is very tall; she must be in a position of power and Vala wonders if she is the head of the hospital here to kick her out.

"Blue destroyer to E5," the woman says.

It's Nova Prime. It's the next move in their strategy game and it's a very good one, except that Nova Prime doesn't know about the Red fighter-carrier Vala's got on E4. Vala has been saving up this bluff for a while now, explaining it to Garthan as the game went on so that he could be properly smug for her when he delivered her winning move to Nova Prime. The thought brings tears to her eyes.

Nova Prime sits next to her and puts a hand on Vala's arm.

"You sent him out there." Vala's voice is small.

"I know, dear. I know." Nova Prime does not apologize. There is nothing to apologize for. She does not tell Vala that her husband is a hero, like the nurses and doctors have. She does not tell Vala she is sorry for her loss. They sit in silence. Nova Prime's time is precious, Vala knows, but the woman sits with her awhile before informing her that there is literally nothing left of Garthan or anyone else from his area of the blockade. It's all ash. Vala knew this because Yondu would have come to see her if he had found a body, but since he hasn't and he doesn't know she's aware of his presence he probably felt it better to just slip away. Yondu had always understood, better even than Vala had at times, where her heart was.

"Vala Saal, I have taken quite a lot from you already, I know, but I am going to ask you a favor."

"What is it?"

"I've lost quite a lot of my command chain. A lot of people are eager to enlist but a many of them will be rejected by the Nova Force."

"Why?"

"Because they're enlisting out of bloodlust, or they are too free-spirited, or prone to disloyalty. Nova Corps needs people who sincerely value the greater good over their own."

"Like Garthan."

Nova Prime closes her eyes a moment, and Vala can see that this woman relied on Garthan nearly as much as Vala did. "Yes."

"What do you want from me?"

Nova Prime looks at her very seriously. "I want you to sign your life away to the cause that your husband gave his for. I want you to join the Nova Corps. You're already familiar with the politics and duties involved. You won't be doing his job but you'll be helping me rebuild. As a Centurion, probably. A Denarian at the very least."

"The Nova Force already rejected me. I'm not good enough."

"You were rejected as a wild and overly free-spirited nineteen year old. And I do believe that anyone good enough for Saal will be quite good enough for the Nova Force. Will you do this for me, Vala?"

Vala remains silent. It is a lot to think about. She'd be taking orders, shuttled here and there on assignment, no longer finding her own adventures but being directed to certain ones. She'd be on Xandar much of the time, without Garthan to come home to and no Yondu to run off to. Is that what she wants to spend the rest of her life doing?

It's what Garthan spent his life doing. Would still be doing, if only.

"I have a Red fighter-carrier on E4," Vala says, in answer.

Nova Prime smiles. "I know. The blue destroyer is mined."

It was a suicide play. Vala's red fighter-carrier was dead, and with it her chance of winning the game. She had never expected her opponent to give up the destroyer. "But that's your best ship."

"Yes, it was," Nova Prime says, and if her smile wavers and for an instant both of them know she is not talking at all about a strategy game, neither of them feels the need to say anything about it.

* * *

I **waffled a bit over whether to write this bit at all, and then whether to kill Saal or save him. The story ended up perfect the way it was, if a little bit more profound than I originally intended. Love is seriously business, folks.**

 **Also: to be clear, since there was not room in the fic to be explict, Saal is asexual, Yondu is het, and Vala is pan. Their relationships are just one of many forms that polyamory can take, with Vala and Saal as primary partners and Yondu as Vala's secondary partner/fuck buddy/partner in crime. Some may or may not consider this a threesome, since Saal and Yondu never have a relationship.**


End file.
